The Misfits (1961) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error A divorcee falls for an over-the-hill cowboy who is struggling to maintain his romantically independent lifestyle. Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 31 titles created 15 Sep 2011 a list of 23 titles created 20 Oct 2011 a list of 23 titles created 15 Aug 2013 a list of 30 titles created 12 Sep 2014 a list of 41 titles created 9 months ago Search for " The Misfits " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. 1 win & 1 nomination.

See more awards » Photos A naive but stubborn cowboy falls in love with a saloon singer and tries to take her away against her will to get married and live on his ranch in Montana. Director: Joshua Logan When billionaire Jean-Marc Clement learns that he is to be satirized in an off-Broadway revue, he passes himself off as an actor playing him in order to get closer to the beautiful star of the show, Amanda Dell. Director: George Cukor An American showgirl becomes entangled in political intrigue when the prince regent of a foreign country attempts to seduce her. Director: Laurence Olivier The title river unites a farmer recently released from prison, his young son, and an ambitious saloon singer. In order to survive, each must be purged of anger, and each must learn to understand and care for the others. Directors: Otto Preminger, Jean Negulesco Stars: Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe, Rory Calhoun As two couples are visiting Niagara Falls, tensions between one wife and her husband reach the level of murder. Director: Henry Hathaway When his family goes away for the summer, a so far faithful husband is tempted by a beautiful neighbor.

Director: Billy Wilder Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process. Director: Jean Negulesco Showgirls Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw travel to Paris, pursued by a private detective hired by the suspicious father of Lorelei's fiancé, as well as a rich, enamored old man and many other doting admirers. Director: Howard Hawks Molly and Terry Donahue, plus their three children, are The Five Donahues. Son Tim meets hat-check girl Vicky and the family act begins to fall apart. Director: Walter Lang A major heist goes off as planned, until bad luck and double crosses cause everything to unravel. Director: John Huston A chemist finds his personal and professional life turned upside down when one of his chimpanzees finds the fountain of youth. Director: Howard Hawks After being dumped by his girlfriend, an airline pilot pursues a babysitter in his hotel and gradually realizes she's dangerous. Director: Roy Ward Baker Edit Storyline Roslyn Taber, the type of woman who turns heads easily, recently came to Reno to get a quickie divorce, she having no idea what to do with her life after that.

She cannot tolerate seeing animal suffering, let alone human suffering. Coinciding with getting the divorce, Roslyn meets friends Gay Langland and Guido, a divorced aging grizzled cowboy and a widowed mechanic respectively. Although Guido makes no bones about wanting to get to know Roslyn in the biblical sense and although he "saw her first", Roslyn begins a relationship with Gay, despite Roslyn's friend Izzy Steers, who originally came to Reno years ago to get her own divorce and never left, warning her about cowboys as being unreliable, and despite Roslyn initially not being interested in Gay "in that way". Gay has grown children who he rarely sees and wishes he was there for more than was the case. Gay and Roslyn move into the under construction farmhouse owned by Guido, which he was building for his wife before she died. ... Written by Huggo It shouts and sings with life ... explodes with love! See more » Genres: 1 February 1961 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Did You Know? Trivia United Artists executives were unhappy with the rough cut of the film, so director John Huston , producer Frank E.

Taylor , and writer Arthur Miller all agreed to reshoot several scenes. Clark Gable had script approval, however, and he rejected the idea. Other disagreements over the final cut resulted in the elimination of a shot of Marilyn Monroe 's naked breast from the bedroom scene. See more » Goofs When Monroe and Cliff are behind the bar sitting near an old car and a pile of beer cans, the cans change places from cut to cut when seen from behind Monroe down to Cliff. See more » Quotes [first lines] Isabelle Steers : Young man, do you have the time? I got six clocks in the house and none of them work. Guido : Twenty after nine. Isabelle Steers : After? It's twenty after, dear. Dahlin'. Five minutes. Roslyn : What about you? Isabelle Steers : I'm all set, I just tyin' my sling. The lawyer said nine thirty sharp, dahlin'. See more » Crazy Credits There are no closing credits of any kind. Not even the words "THE END" appear on the screen.

See more » Connections (Perth, WA) – See all my reviews The Misfits, the last film of Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe, is a truly haunting film that never leaves you long after you've finished watching it. Despite having a poor box office and mixed reviews, it is now highly regarded among modern critics. It is about a restless fragile divorcée finding a new life in Reno with a couple of cowboys, one of which has a gambling problem and survives on slaughtering mustangs to make dog food. Not only does this showcase Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable's exceptional (and often underestimated) talent, but it is a very beautiful movie that lingers on in your mind long after you have finished watching it. Personally it has affected me a lot, especially the horse sequence. I know this was essential to the film but as an animal lover and vegetarian I found it very distressing - in fact incredibly distressing seeing the horses being treated that way for the sake of the movie. Nevertheless, it added to the movie and when they were set free, it was the most magnificent moment in the movie. Marilyn's screaming part was also very beautiful, I felt her frustration completely.

The Misfits is a very suitable title as it refers to both the poor horses caught up in the web of human greed and also to the restless humans, unsatisfied and cruel. This is a very moving movie, showing the cruelness of human nature and a most realistic portrayal of human life, both the positive and the negative. I was so astounded by both Marilyn and Clark's acting, plus the magnificent script which was so very intelligent, magnificent quotes. I definitely recommend this movie to everyone. 34 of 51 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Marilyn Monroe: From the Orphanage to an American Icon Also known as: Norma Jeane Baker, Norma Jean Baker, Norma Jean Mortenson, Norma Jean Mortensen Religion: Convert to Judaism Early Life Marilyn Monroe, whose name was Norma Jean Baker in childhood, was born to Gladys Mortenson, a film technician, whose husband, Edward Mortenson, deserted the family. Norma Jean's natural father may have actually been another studio employee, C. Stanley Gifford. Gladys' mental illness surfaced shortly after her daughter's birth, and she was institutionalized much of Norma Jean's growing years.

Norma Jean was placed in a series of twelve foster homes, and once in an orphanage. She attended Van Nuys High School in Los Angeles, California. At sixteen, Norma Jean escaped the foster system by marrying 20-year-old James Dougherty. A year later, in 1943, he joined the U.S. Merchant Marine. Norma Jean took a job in an airline plant, part of the World War II factory effort, and worked first as a parachute inspector, then as a paint sprayer. continue reading below our video 10 Best Universities in the United States When the government came through to take promotional photographs of the women working in the plant, the brunette Norma Jean learned that she photographed well, took a modeling course, and began working part-time as a photographer's model. Success as a photographer's model led her to her dream of becoming an actress. In 1946, she divorced Dougherty and bleached her hair to become a blond. She signed a one-year, $125/month contract with Twentieth Century-Fox on August 26, 1946.

Ben Lyon, casting director , suggested that she take the name Marilyn, and she added her grandmother's last name, Monroe. Marilyn Monroe as Actress Marilyn Monroe played one bit part that year, all of which ended up on the cutting room floor. The next year, she signed another one-year contract, this time with Columbia. The results weren't any better. In 1950, Marilyn Monroe posed for full-length nude shots, which the photographer Tom Kelley sold for a calendar. That same year, she appeared in a bit part in The Asphalt Jungle, and though her name wasn't even mentioned in the credits, her appearance generated a huge amount of fan mail. Her reputation as a blond bombshell had begun to be established. So Twentieth Century-Fox signed Marilyn Monroe to a new contract -- this time, for seven years. She appeared in All About Eve. In 1953, she had her first starring role, in Niagara. In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes she sang and, for the first time, she had her own dressing room. In January, 1954, Marilyn Monroe married the famous baseball player, Joe DiMaggio. The marriage was short-lived; they divorced in October.

Seven Year Itch For the 1955 movie The Seven Year Itch , Marilyn Monroe appeared in the famous photographic stunt, in a white halter dress , with her skirt blown up by a draft from a sidewalk grate, leaning down to catch her dress so that her cleavage showed. The photograph was used to advertise the film, and has become one of the iconic images of Marilyn Monroe. After filming The Seven Year Itch, in which she plays a prototypical "dumb blond," Marilyn Monroe decided to work more seriously on her acting skills, to the skepticism of many critics. She broke her movie contract, and moved to New York to study at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg for a year. Success ... and Problems In 1955, she founded her own company with Milton Greene, Marilyn Monroe Productions, and signed a new contract with Twentieth Century-Fox. She made the 1956 movie Bus Stop , which wowed the critics, but she'd begun to lose herself to self-doubt, depression, drugs, and alcohol. Marilyn Monroe, whose mother and maternal grandparents had all struggled with mental illness and institutionalization, began taking sleeping pills for her insomnia. She regularly consulted psychiatrists.

She drank heavily, and began a habit of arriving late to work, and sometimes not being able to work at all. Arthur Miller She married Arthur Miller , the playwright, shortly after Bus Stop was released, and for the marriage converted to Judaism. She lived quietly for two years with her new husband. During that time, Miller was fighting his conviction for contempt-of-Congress for refusing to answer two questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The marriage, and several miscarriages, added to her self-doubt and depression, and to her use of drugs and alcohol. Marilyn Monroe's next movie, The Prince and the Showgirl, brought mixed reviews. That was followed by Let's Make Love, and an unhappy romantic liaison with co-star Yves Montand. The Misfits was written for Marilyn Monroe by her husband, Arthur Miller. She performed well in the final product, though, during its filming, she was often under the influence of alcohol and pills, and she was notoriously late to the set. Marilyn was affected by the death, two months after the film was completed, of her co-star, Clark Gable . In early 1961, Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller divorced.

During this period, she was also bothered by many rumors of affairs, including with the President, John F. Kennedy , and his brother, Robert F. Kennedy. Last Months Filming her next project, ironically titled Something's Got to Give, Marilyn's lateness and addictions led to her dismissal after a month. She was briefly committed to a mental hospital. She was approved to return to the film, but never resumed filming. Two months later, in her home in Los Angeles, Marilyn Monroe was found by her housekeeper, dead, with an empty bottle of sleeping pills next to her body. The coroner found the death was caused by an overdose of barbiturates, and pronounced it a possible suicide. No evidence of foul play was presented to the coroner. Marilyn Monroe's funeral was planned by Joe DiMaggio; Lee Strasberg delivered the eulogy.

Also: Biographies of Marilyn Monroe | Famous Marilyn Monroe Quotes More women's history biographies, by name: Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio: The End of a Marriage, 1954 SHARE On the 60th anniversary of their wedding, pictures from the day Marilyn Monroe announced she was seeking a divorce from Joe DiMaggio on grounds of "mental cruelty." Marilyn Monroe and baseball legend Joe DiMaggio wed in 1954 (second marriages for both), and were divorced nine months later. That the union was doomed from the beginning was, perhaps, easy to foresee. But even if the marriage was not a happy one for either of the two famous partners, there seems to be little doubt that there really was genuine affection there at the start — and at the end. In fact, after Monroe’s divorce from her third husband, the playwright Arthur Miller , was finalized in 1961, DiMaggio came back into her life and, by all accounts, desperately tried to bring some stability and calm to an existence that was veering dangerously out of control.

He tried to get her away from people who, to his mind, were nothing but trouble (including, it seems, the Kennedys), and even proposed to her, asking her to marry him again. It’s awful, now, to think that if Marilyn had been given a little more time, DiMaggio could have been just the person to pull her back from the brink — of depression, drugs, disastrous affairs with married men. In other words, he might have saved her life. But a year and a half after her marriage to Miller ended, Marilyn — all of 36 years old — was dead. DiMaggio, it seems, could not protect her from whatever demons drove her. He was only in his 40s when Marilyn died on August 5, 1962, but he never married again.

Here, LIFE.com presents pictures from October 6, 1954, when Marilyn stepped out of the house on North Palm Drive in Beverly Hills to announce she was seeking a divorce from DiMaggio on the grounds of “mental cruelty.” DiMaggio had initially been drawn (like a few hundred million other men) to Marilyn’s “sex goddess” persona — but he was never comfortable with her flaunting it, and was something of a self-admitted control freak. Neither DiMaggio nor Monroe could possibly have been content or satisfied in a marriage in which two such divergent personalities held sway. The photographs here are not pleasant. They’re not easy to look at. There’s real pain in Marilyn’s face, posture and demeanor — the pain of a young woman who knows she’s doing the right thing, but who wishes all the same that there was some way, any way, that she could avoid doing it. Still, these pictures tell one small but integral part of the Marilyn Monroe story, and capture the star at a pivotal point in her fraught life. She would marry again. She would make more movies in the coming years, including several classics.

But deeper and more enduring pain was also in her future, and an especially discerning eye might see in these photographs something in Marilyn’s attitude that suggests she herself was aware of the gathering, ill-defined storm, and was bracing for it. Of the October 1954 divorce filing, meanwhile, LIFE told its readers: Even for Hollywood, where unhappy endings for the real love stories come with almost unseemly haste, this ending seemed abrupt. It was only last January that the press was mobbing the San Francisco city hall, waiting for Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe to emerge as newlywed man and wife. Now the press was gathered again in front of the DiMaggio home in Beverly Hills, waiting for Joe and Marilyn to come out as newly-separated man and wife. Nobody had been surprised when they got married — they had been going with each other for two years. Nobody doubted their love — they had smiled happily through their married life. And almost nobody professed surprised when they broke up — the conflict in their two careers seemed inevitable. Marilyn Monroe Blog Marilyn Monroe Her name brings beauty and sensuality, with a note of innocence, to the minds of those who hear it.

Marilyn Monroe dominated the age of movie stars to become, without question, one of the most famous women of the 20th century. During her career, Monroe made 30 films and left one, "Something's Got to Give," unfinished. A worldwide sensation in her lifetime, Monroe's popularity made her much more than a star; she became an American icon. Childhood and schooling Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, California , to Gladys Baker. There was a dispute about her father's identity, and she was later baptized Norma Jeane Baker. After her mother was committed to a mental institution, Norma Jeane spent most of her childhood in foster homes and orphanages until 1937, when she moved in with family friend Grace McKee Goddard. While with her, Norma Jeane attended Van Nuys High School and University High School. When Grace's husband was transferred to the East Coast in 1942, the couple could not afford to take 16-year-old Norma Jeane with them. That left her with one of two choices: Return to the orphanage or get married.

She chose the latter. On June 19, 1942, Norma Jeane wedded 21-year-old Jimmy Dougherty, whom she had been dating for six months. In 1944, Jimmy joined the Merchant Marine s and was sent to the South Pacific. A big break After Jimmy left, Norma Jeane took a job on the assembly line at the Radio Plane Munitions factory in Burbank, California. Several months later, "Yank" magazine photographer David Conover saw her while taking pictures of women contributing to the war effort. Conover used Norma Jeane for the shoot, then began to send modeling jobs her way. Within two years, she was a reputable model with numerous popular magazine covers to her credit. Norma Jeane began to study the work of legendary actresses Jean Harlow and Lana Turner, and enrolled in drama classes. She was forced to make a hard choice between her marriage and her career, when Jimmy returned in 1946. Norma Jeane divorced him in June 1946, and signed her first studio contract with Twentieth Century Fox in August.

Norma Jeane becomes Marilyn Soon after, Norma Jeane dyed her hair blonde and changed her name to Marilyn Monroe, borrowing her grandmotherï¿½s last name. Her beauty and bubbly personality won her the title "Miss California Artichoke Queen" in 1947. Monroe's first movie role was a bit part in "The Shocking Miss Pilgrim" (1947). She played a series of supporting characters until 1950, when John Huston's movie, "The Asphalt Jungle," provided her with a small, but influential role. Later that year, Monroe's performance in "All About Eve," which starred Bette Davis , earned her considerable notice. From then on, Monroe worked steadily in such movies as, "Let's Make It Legal," "As Young As You Feel," "Monkey Business," and "Don't Bother to Knock." It was her performance in "Niagara" (1953) that made her a star.

Film stardom Monroe's success in "Niagara" was followed with lead roles in such popular movies as "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," co-starring Jane Russell, and "How to Marry a Millionaire," which also starred Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable . In 1953, "Photoplay" magazine voted Monroe the Best New Actress. Also in 1953, Monroe became the first centerfold for "Playboy" magazine. In January 1954, Monroe married baseball star Joe DiMaggio at San Francisco 's City Hall. During their Tokyo honeymoon, she took time to perform for the servicemen stationed in Korea. Her presence caused a near-riot among the troops. Unfortunately, Monroe's fame and sexual image became a sore spot in their marriage. Nine months later, Marilyn and Joe divorced, but they remained close friends. In 1956, Monroe established her own motion picture company, Marilyn Monroe Productions. The company produced "Bus Stop" and "The Prince and the Showgirl." With those films, Monroe demonstrated her talent and versatility as an actress.

She received a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy in 1959 for the movie "Some Like It Hot." In June 1956, Monroe wedded playwright Arthur Miller . Miller wrote the part of Roslyn Taber especially for Monroe, in the 1961 film "The Misfits." The movie co-starred Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift. The marriage ended in divorce in January 1961, and "The Misfits" was to be Monroe's last completed film. In 1962, Monroe was purportedly involved in affairs with President Kennedy and his brother, Robert Kennedy. Also that year, at the Golden Globe Awards, Marilyn was named female "World Film Favorite," proving once and for all that she was worthy of the title "Icon." Demise of an icon Early on the morning of August 5, 1962, 36-year-old Marilyn Monroe died in mysterious circumstances at her Brentwood, California home. The world was stunned, and speculation about the cause of death persists. On August 8, 1962, Monroe's remains were laid to rest in the Corridor of Memories, at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles .

Shortly following Monroe's death, pop artist Andy Warhol helped to immortalize her with a series of colorful prints, and singer Elton John did his part with "Candle in the Wind," recorded in the early Seventies. Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio were married 60 years ago today | For The Win Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio were married 60 years ago today Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio were married 60 years ago today By Nina Mandell January 14, 2014 1:10 pm Follow @ninamandell 10k shares Sixty years ago today one of the most famous marriages in American history became official: Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio. AFP/AFP/Getty Images “I don’t think it was a surprise at all,” said Jerry Coleman, one of DiMaggio’s Yankee teammates, according to PBS . “The greatest woman in the world and the greatest guy in the world. It was a perfect match.” STF/AFP/Getty Images The two were married for nine months before a pretty messy divorce, where Monroe charged “mental cruelty”.

From Life Magazine at the time: “Nobody had been surprised when they got married — they had been going with each other for two years. Nobody doubted their love — they had smiled happily through their married life. And almost nobody professed surprised when they broke up — the conflict in their two careers seemed inevitable.” AFP/AFP/Getty Images After Monroe’s divorce from playwright Arthur Miller, DiMaggio became a sort of rock for the actress. When she died, he stepped in to orchestrate her funeral. Again, from PBS : For two decades, DiMaggio had flowers delivered to Marilyn’s grave twice a week. “I firmly believe,” said Brad Dexter, “that all the years that [DiMaggio] made those visitations to her grave site and left flowers. . . he was still in love with her, but also [did it] out of a great sense of guilt. Because I think he helped contribute to her demise. I’m firmly convinced that if he had behaved differently, they would have had a good marriage.

He destroyed it–and he felt that guilt.” Though it was disputed by some witnesses , according to his lawyer, when DiMaggio died in 1999 his last words were: “I’ll finally get to see Marilyn.” Joe DiMaggio wanted Marilyn Monroe to be his demure housewife so when she posed for this picture he beat her up | Daily Mail Online Joe DiMaggio wanted Marilyn Monroe to be his demure housewife so when she posed for this picture he beat her up comments Marilyn Monroe had money, fame and critical acclaim, but what she wanted most was a man to love her. The men she loved - and who loved her back - were Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller and Frank Sinatra. But all three were troubled relationships. In our final extract from a definitive new biography, we reveal the blazing rows, the miscarriages and the morning she seduced Sinatra... Baseball player Joe DiMaggio saw some publicity shots of Marilyn Monroe in March 1952 and decided to ask her for a date. Although she was a dazzlingly beautiful movie star, he was at that time by far the bigger celebrity. His brilliance with a baseball bat for the New York Yankees made him one of America's most revered heroes.

He had retired from baseball just a few months before, aged only 36, because of injuries - but the public adored him still as a sporting legend. Iconic: Marilyn Monroe posed for this sexy, skirt-flying shot for The Seven Year Itch but husband Joe DiMaggio was incensed with jealousy and beat her The date was set for March 8, at Villa Nova, an Italian restaurant which is now The Rainbow Bar And Grill on Sunset Boulevard. Marilyn, who wasn't sure she was much interested in a baseball player, was late by two hours. But he impressed her. Despite his quiet, almost sullen demeanour, he still managed to command the whole room. He wasn't goodlooking: his face was all sharp angles, with teeth not only bucked but haphazardly arranged, and eyes too close together. He was lanky and spindly. He didn't walk, he lumbered. But power seemed to emanate from him. After dinner, they drove around Beverly Hills for three hours, fascinated by each other. During the summer of 1952, Marilyn and DiMaggio began to date more regularly. But red flags were raised by her concerned friends.

He didn't like her career, he thought women should be firmly in the home, he was jealous of the attention she generated from other men. In July, Joe took her home to San Francisco to meet his family. Once there, she clearly saw why Joe wanted his wife to be domestic - women raised children, cooked and cleaned, and it had always been that way in the DiMaggio family. The eighth of nine children of Sicilian immigrants, Joe was raised with strict Catholic values in a household that stressed a strong work ethic and, above all, pride in their Sicilian heritage. At the end of summer, Joe dropped a real bombshell: he thought it would be best if Marilyn abandoned her acting. It only caused her stress, he argued, so why do it? 'Joe was sick and tired of Marilyn's career,' said Stacy Edwards, who was a sportswriter at the time in Philadelphia and knew DiMaggio well. 'He said he wanted to get her out of the movies. "We'll buy a nice home in San Francisco and just live a simpler life," he told me. Enlarge Resentment: Marilyn with Joe in 1954.

In the October of that year they were divorced after only nine months of marriage 'I knew Joe and I knew what he was about deep down, and it wasn't just Marilyn's career. The attention she got, he was used to getting. When he walked into a room with her, he disappeared. He wasn't used to that at all. He was used to being centre of attention. But with Marilyn, no man could ever be centre of attention. Joe couldn't accept that.' Then, on New Year's Eve 1953, Joe asked her to marry him. Carried away by the moment, Marilyn said yes. On January 14, 1954, they were married in a quick civil ceremony in San Francisco. She made a strange request though. If she died before him, would he promise to place flowers at her grave every week? He promised - and years later would fulfil this bleak pledge. Even with his ring on her finger, DiMaggio could not reconcile himself to Monroe's stardom. He turned to his friend Norman Brokaw, a Hollywood agent, for advice.

'I want her to quit,' he told him, 'but she won't do it.' Norman mulled over his friend's problem for a moment and said: 'Joe, let me explain something to you, as an agent in this town. There's no actress in this business who is going to give up Clark Gable or Tyrone Power or Spencer Tracy for any man. 'In fact, I don't know any actress who'd be willing to give up her career when she's on her way to the top, any more than you'd have given up your baseball career before its time. So you have to get used to it. Or, honest to God, you're going to lose her.' Not long after this meeting with Norman, Joe wrote in his personal journal about Marilyn: 'No jealousy . . . Don't forget how lonesome and unhappy you are - especially without her.' But the jealousy wasn't the only problem. 'He was smacking her around,' said one of his closest friends. 'He didn't seem too ashamed of it, either. He said that she brought the worst out in him, that he wasn't usually that kind of man.

He said she was spoiled and very self-centred and it drove him crazy.' The final straw for Marilyn came when Joe beat her up in their hotel after he became incensed at the sexy, skirt-flying shoot for The Seven Year Itch. Five thousand onlookers watched the filming of that shot, at one in the morning, with Marilyn standing over a subway grate, her accordion-pleated skirt flying. Unfortunately, DiMaggio was one of them. Director Billy Wilder described the expression on DiMaggio's face as 'the look of death'. Even though Marilyn wore two pairs of pants for modesty, under the powerful Klieg lights the material became quite see-through. Unhappy marriage number two: Marilyn was always afraid playwright husband Arthur Miller, would 'find out' she wasn't intelligent enough for him He rushed back to their hotel and waited for his wife. Then he took out his rage on her, slapping her around the room. The noise was so great that other hotel guests reported it to the hotel's management, afraid that someone was getting badly hurt. The next day, Gladys Witten, a studio hairdresser, noticed bruises on Marilyn's shoulders. 'But we covered them with make-up,' she said.

Sportswriter Stacy Edwards says: 'The way I heard it, Joe let her have it. It was pretty bad. After he hit her, she told him she'd had enough and wanted out of the marriage. 'I spoke to Joe maybe three weeks later and asked him about that night. He said "Things got out of hand, I admit it. But she p****d me off so much. She didn't care what I thought about anything, she just wanted to do what she wanted to do." 'I lost a lot of respect for Joe when I found out he hit Marilyn. I thought "How could any man hit such a beautiful creature?"' On October 27, 1954, just nine months after her wedding - Marilyn stood before a judge and detailed her reasons for her divorce petition. She said DiMaggio was 'cold and indifferent' to her and that days would go by when he wouldn't speak to her. DiMaggio didn't make an appearance and the divorce was granted. One of the people Marilyn could turn to during this time was her friend Frank Sinatra. While her divorce was being finalised, she went to live with Sinatra for a couple of weeks to recover emotionally.

Sinatra was miserable himself at this time, because of the slow erosion of his marriage to actress Ava Gardner, said to be the love of his life. For a time, his relationship with Marilyn was platonic. That situation apparently changed early one morning when Sinatra went into the kitchen and found Marilyn standing in front of the open refrigerator, trying to decide between orange juice and grapefruit. By the time Marilyn came to make Some Like It Hot, she was mired in extreme depression while the cast and crew thought she was incredibly unprofessional She was naked. 'Oh, Frankie,' she said, feigning embarrassment, 'I didn't know you got up so early.' 'That was the end of anything platonic,' reported Sinatra's friend Jimmy Whiting. 'Actually, Frank had been going through this impotency trip at this time. The booze was completely ruining his sex life. He was getting too old to drink like that and then expect to perform in the sack. He was frustrated by it, because one thing Sinatra always prided himself on was his ability to satisfy a woman.' Apparently, Marilyn cured Sinatra of his impotence, at least for a while.

'Frank said that Marilyn was like a shooting star,' observed actress Esther Williams, 'and you couldn't help but be fascinated by her journey. While you knew she was going to crash and burn, you didn't know how.' The only reason Sinatra wouldn't allow himself to become more serious with her was because he was still racked with pain over Ava. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share A few months later, in the spring of 1955, Marilyn began a relationship with the intellectual playwright Arthur Miller. He was married when he met Marilyn and lived on the East Coast with his wife and two children. They secretly began dating. Miller loved how well Marilyn listened to him, the way she hung on his every word. One mutual friend of the couple put it best: 'She was all about listening and receiving and he was all about talking and sending. He lectured her constantly. She was mesmerised by him. She drank him in like a sponge.' However, she was reluctant to marry him because she wasn't sure she was right for him. He could continue to dazzle her with his intelligence, but she confided in friends she didn't think she was intelligent enough for him.

'What will he do when I'm found out?' she fretted. Yet, despite her doubts, on June 29, during a very quick private service, Marilyn and Miller were married in New York. They travelled together to London in the summer of 1956 where Marilyn would have the unhappy experience of filming The Prince And The Showgirl with Laurence Olivier. Lover: Frank Sinatra, pictured with actress wife Ava Gardner before they split, had a brief relationship with Marilyn Mabel Whittington, a maid at the newlyweds' rented house, recalled: 'They seemed happy at the start, but as the months wore on he was constantly nagging her, usually how he felt she should prepare for the day's work. He picked on her a lot. She seemed to really want to know his opinion, though. 'However, I think there was a point when she'd had enough, especially when he began to criticise her acting when she was practising from her script. She'd walk around the house trying to remember a simple line, repeating it to herself over and over. 'He was annoyed and he kept correcting her. She snapped at him and said: "When you begin making pictures, we can discuss this.

Until then, let me act and you do what you do."' Shortly before filming was to begin, Marilyn happened to see a journal Arthur wrote, open on a table, and read it. What she saw terrified her. On those pages, Arthur confessed he had second thoughts about having married her. She wasn't what he'd thought she was - she was just a child, not a woman. She wasn't as intelligent as he hoped and, in fact, she was someone he pitied. Moreover, he thought his career might be jeopardised by his new association with her. He had heard that Laurence Olivier thought she might be a spoiled brat, and he didn't know how to respond to that, since he basically agreed. He called her a bitch. It was the realisation of Marilyn's worst fear - that she would be 'found out', that she wasn't as smart or as talented as she had made him think she was, and now he knew the truth. 'It seemed to be raining the whole time,' Marilyn would say of her experience in England. 'Or maybe it was me.' In July the following year, Marilyn learned she was pregnant.

She wanted nothing more than to have a baby, but it was an ectopic pregnancy and she lost the baby. For the following year she was deeply depressed. By the time she came to make perhaps her most famous film, Some Like It Hot, she was mired in extreme depression. The best pictures of her career: Photographer Douglas Kirkland shot the famous snaps of Marilyn, naked in silk sheets, in 1961 the year before her death On September 12, 1958, after a long and emotional telephone conversation with Arthur, Marilyn took an overdose of sleeping pills - something she had done several times before. Had it not been for her drama coach, Paula Strasberg, coming to her rescue, she might have died. Once Miller arrived in LA to be with her, he realised practically everyone connected with Some Like It Hot, from Billy Wilder down, found his wife incredibly unprofessional. Miller was embarrassed for her and for himself. He was angrier with her than ever. 'My feeling about Arthur Miller was that he was a little too resentful of his wife,' Wilder recalled. 'I wasn't married to her. I didn't have to be patient and loving.

But he was her husband and I thought he could have been more understanding. I remember saying at the time: "Finally, I have met someone who resents Marilyn Monroe as much, if not more, than I do." ' To compound her misery, on December 16, 1958, Marilyn suffered a miscarriage and, after a series of operations, was told she would never be able to have children. The marriage limped on during the filming of The Misfits - written by Miller and which, unknown to either of them, would be her last film. 'Marilyn and Arthur so loathed each other, I'm not sure how either of them got through this movie,' recalled make-up artist Allan Snyder. Yet again her hopes of a happy marriage were to end in the divorce courts. It wouldn't be long before Marilyn was hospitalised with a breakdown. She turned, strangely, to Joe DiMaggio to rescue her. He'd been in therapy and although he could still be jealous and controlling, he proved a loyal and trusted friend, although both knew better than to risk remarrying. During this time, Marilyn also rekindled her romance with Sinatra.

'He was in love with her, no doubt about it,' said Milt Ebbins, business partner to President Kennedy's brother-in-law, the actor Peter Lawford, and a good friend of Sinatra's. Her problems with drink and drugs were almost too much for him, though. In September 1961, Marilyn joined Sinatra on his yacht for a four day cruise to Catalina Island. She drank plenty of champagne and the more she drank, the more disoriented and boisterous she became. She also took plenty of the sleeping pills to which she was addicted. Sinatra became frustrated and embarrassed by her behaviour. One of his former associates recalled: 'Tell you the truth, Frank couldn't wait to get her off that boat. She was embarrassing him. He told me: "I swear to Christ, I am ready to throw her right off this goddamn boat." 'Instead, he called one of his assistants at the end of the trip and had her taken back to his place. He told me later that when he got home, she was sound asleep on the couch. 'He picked her up and moved her to the bedroom. He undressed her and put her under the covers where she slept soundly through the night.

I asked Sinatra if he was going to stop seeing Marilyn and he said: "By now, I would have cut any other dame loose. But this one - I just can't do it."' Perhaps what is most telling about this time in her life is that despite her terrible unhappiness, the photographs of Marilyn are the best of her career. Photographer Douglas Kirkland, who took the famous pictures of her in November 1961, lying in bed covered in white silk, says the idea was hers. 'She sat beside me and put me at ease. I was young and didn't know how to ask her to pose for sexy images, but she simplified it, suggesting: "I should get into bed with nothing on but white silk." We discussed the details and she said she wanted Sinatra music and chilled Dom Perignon.' She never looked lovelier than she does in those photographs. How she was able to turn on the professional Marilyn Monroe, at the same time as she was so terribly troubled, remained a true mystery to her friends and associates. It was as if she only found true bliss in front of the camera as the perfect vision of herself. She certainly never found it with any man.

• Extracted from The Secret Life Of Marilyn Monroe by J. Randy Taraborrelli, published by Sidgwick & Jackson on September 18 at £18.99 ° 2009 J. Randy Taraborrelli. To order a copy (p&p free) for £17.10 call 0845 155 0720. Marilyn's last day: Twenty-four hours inthe death of a legend | The Independent Americas Marilyn's last day: Twenty-four hours inthe death of a legend Was it murder or suicide? Was she desperate or full of hope? Did Robert Kennedy visit her secretly or was he miles away? Monroe would have been 80 this year. As the anniversary is marked, Liz Hoggard reconstructs her final moments from the latest theories Saturday 28 October 2006 23:00 BST Click to follow The Independent US Marilyn Monroe woke early that Saturday morning. She had slept badly. She surveyed herself in the mirror - thinner than she had been in years, she looked tired. She needed a manicure and a pedicure.

But first, feeling the old anxieties crowding in, she needed to talk. Who should she call? One of her three ex-husbands? Her psychiatrist? The White House? As befits a Hollywood legend, the last day of Marilyn Monroe's life is shrouded in mystery. The 36-year-old actress spent Saturday 4 August 1962 at her Los Angeles home. By early next day she would be dead, found nude by her housekeeper, face down on her bed, clutching a telephone receiver, an empty bottle of Nembutal capsules at her side. When news of her apparent suicide broke the next day, America was astonished that the star had been without a date on Saturday night. Forty-four years after her death, and the details of what happened during those hours are less clear than ever. Was it suicide or murder? Was Monroe driven to despair by the recent end of her love affair with President Kennedy? Only two months earlier she had sung "Happy Birthday, Mr President" at Madison Square Garden, but he ended the relationship brutally soon after. Had she embarked on a new relationship with his brother Robert F Kennedy? Marilyn was known to keep a little black book documenting all her affairs and conversations.

At the time of her death, Hollywood rumours were circulating that she was about to announce a press conference the following Monday. The coroner's official verdict was "probable suicide". Monroe was represented as a professionally unreliable, pill-popping depressive. Always highly strung - she suffered rashes, hysteria, sickness and other psychosomatic illnesses which could be triggered by tension or confrontation - her critics argued she had simply spiralled into self-destruction. Terrified of abandonment (as a child she was shuttled between orphanages and foster parents), she feared turning into her mother, who had spent most of her life in a psychiatric clinic. A year previously, suffering from depression, Monroe had checked into the Payne Whitney psychiatric clinic. To her horror she was locked in a padded cell. It was only when she phoned her ex-husband, baseball star Joe DiMaggio, that she was released. That August day, Monroe, her critics argued, was an ageing sexpot with a washed-up career. Pale, thin and lifeless, her hair ruined by bleach, she wouldn't leave the house without her make-up man and hairdresser to prepare her.

She had been fired by Fox and replaced on her last film, Something's Got To Give (the studio claimed she had cost them $2m in delays). Her love life was in pieces, with the end of her marriage to the playwright Arthur Miller. She was embarrassingly promiscuous, there were rumours of an abortion. No wonder she killed herself. Others, however, insist Monroe had never been happier. Decamping from New York to Los Angeles represented a fresh start. She had bought her first house and was refurbishing it. Yes, she was self-medicating too much and receiving psychoanalysis to cope with the end of her marriage, but in the week before her death, her career was back on track. She was the cover star of both Life and Paris-Match. After seeing the triumphant rushes of Something's Got To Give, Fox had rehired her - she was due to report for work again on Monday. Her 23 movies had grossed more than $250m. Which image is true? Every year, it seems, a new piece of the jigsaw emerges.

In 2004, alleged transcripts of tapes that Monroe made for her psychiatrist, and gave to him the day she died, were published, revealing her to be far from suicidal. Last week a letter written by Monroe to her acting teacher, Lee Strasberg, was made public. Although composed eight months before she died, it details Monroe's plan to set up an independent film production company with Marlon Brando. When it comes to Monroe, the conspiracy theorists are listened to. Next Saturday, the Barbican is celebrating the 80th anniversary of Monroe's birth in 1926. The event will be introduced by Sandra Shevey, the first biographer to argue definitively that Monroe was murdered. As with Diana, Princess of Wales, every detail of Marilyn's last days have been picked over. The fascinating thing about Monroe's death is that potentially everything - and nothing - is true. Even the time of death is disputed. Monroe's doctor called the police to register it at 4.25am on Sunday 5 August, but there is evidence that she died around eight hours earlier.

The coroner's report stated that Monroe's death was due to a massive overdose of 47 Nembutal capsules but there was no trace of drugs in her stomach, or evidence of her having taken the tablets orally. Later, Sgt Jack Clemmons of the LAPD claimed that it looked as if her body had been posed on the bed, legs stretched out perfectly straight, unlike the contorted bodies of most victims who have overdosed on sleeping tablets. Key forensic evidence went missing shortly after she died. All the key witnesses from that night (police, friends, a psychiatrist, an attorney, her press agent) contradict each other, and several have changed their stories. So what exactly happened on that fateful Saturday? Monroe's agent, Pat Newcomb, stayed over on the Friday. She says that the actress woke up feeling cranky through lack of sleep, but was excited about a delivery of furniture from Mexico. When her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, arrived at 8.30am, she claimed Monroe was already up, tiling the floor. Newcomb awoke at noon, and she and Monroe argued, apparently over Newcomb's ability to sleep in, but it was soon resolved.

Pat says they planned to sunbathe by Monroe's pool, then maybe join the actor Peter Lawford and his wife Pat (a Kennedy sister) for supper. Some time during Saturday morning, Monroe's mood changed. She was unsettled by the arrival of a stuffed toy in the post with no note. There was a flurry of phone calls. Murray recalls Monroe asking if they kept oxygen in the house, an odd request. Shevey believes that Monroe had begun to fear for her life, aware that she was a political liability. "John F Kennedy was going to run for a second term, Jackie had to be happy with all of it. They needed Marilyn out of the picture." Newcomb went out shopping, and said Monroe was upbeat when she returned. But her psychiatrist, Dr Ralph Greenson, who had arrived for his daily visit, claims Marilyn was in a highly emotional condition. Greenson asked Newcomb to leave, and then asked Murray to stay overnight with Marilyn. He left at 7pm. Marilyn took the phone into her bedroom and Murray claims she never saw her alive again. Lawford says he rang Monroe at 7.30pm and she sounded depressed and slurred.

He claims she said, "Say goodbye to the President and say goodbye to yourself, because you're a nice guy," before her voice faded out. However, his view is contradicted by Joe DiMaggio Jnr, the son of her second husband, who says he phoned her at 7.30pm to tell her he was breaking off an engagement she disapproved of. He says Monroe was in a very good mood at the news. Later that night, Monroe was found dead. Murray woke up and claims she saw a light under the door. Concerned that something terrible had happened, she called Greenson at 3.30am. They peered into Monroe's bedroom window and saw her naked body. Greenson says he broke in with a poker, before ringing Marilyn's physician, Dr Hyman Engelberg, but the window had been mended by the time the police arrived. All these details have been challenged over the years, and it is undoubtedly true that Murray was an unreliable witness. That August, Monroe had fired her. Her last contracted day of work was Saturday 4 August, 1962.

In 1985, after years of denying it, Murray admitted during a BBC interview that Robert Kennedy had visited Monroe's home that day; a claim backed up in 1993 by Murray's brother-in-law who worked as Monroe's handyman. Murray also let slip that an ambulance had arrived while Monroe was still alive. No one knows exactly how many people had access to the house the night Monroe's body was found. Papers were destroyed, telephone records seized. Were they searching for that little black book? Sydney Guilaroff, her hairdresser, says Monroe called him twice, quite hysterical, to say that Kennedy had been at her house with Lawford threatening her. The last phone call Monroe made was to the White House. Was she calling JFK? There are even rumours that she spoke to his wife, Jackie. Shevey, a former feature columnist in Hollywood, says she was asked by Monroe's friends to set the record straight. She is convinced that Robert Kennedy was "very responsible" for Monroe' s death. Robert Kennedy always denied being in Los Angles, but in the 1980s a police deposition came to light, where he admitted being in Monroe's house with Greenson.

"It is documented that he said he was holding her when she struggled, then holding her down while the doctor injected her," says Shevey. Was this a sedative or something more sinister? So ended the life of the most famous woman in the world. As Monroe's body was wheeled out of the house it passed over a tile embedded in the entrance of the hacienda, with the Latin inscription, Cursum perficio, which translates as "I have run the course" - or "My journey ends here". It seems unlikely the journey will ever end. Whodunnit: The conspiracy theories that enthralled fans SUICIDE Depressed about her stalled career and fading looks, plus the end of her affair with President John F Kennedy (and possibly with his brother Robert F Kennedy), Monroe takes an overdose. Accidental suicide: Prescribed too many drugs by her Svengali-like psychiatrist, Ralph Greenson, she overdoses. MANSLAUGHTER Her housekeeper Eunice Murray and her psychiatrist, Greenson, administer a barbiturate-laced enema to calm Monroe down, which reacts with other drugs in her body with fatal consequences. When the police arrived, they find Eunice doing the laundry.

Some biographers insist it was murder, with Greenson variously seen as a spy for the Comintern, the FBI or at least on the Fox pay roll. Murray, they claim, was in league with Greenson and had been sacked by Monroe the day before for insolence. MURDER... ... by Robert Kennedy, JFK's younger brother, panics when she threatens to reveal her affair with JFK, and has her killed by lethal injection. Another theory is that he became her lover, and killed her to protect his career. He insisted he was in San Francisco on the night she died, but there were witness sightings of him in Los Angeles - even entering Monroe's house. ... by Joseph Kennedy, who was afraid that Marilyn would wreck his son JFK's campaign to be re-elected. ... by a member of the Rat Pack, to protect the Kennedys. ... by the Mafia, to blackmail the Kennedys after JFK declares war on organised crime. ... by rightwing nationalists, disturbed by the Kennedys' liberal agenda, or even as punishment for Monroe's marriage to Arthur Miller, a Communist sympathiser ...

by the FBI: last year documents revealed that Monroe was one of a number of stars the FBI kept files on after applying for Russian visa. ... by Fidel Castro, in retaliation for attempts to assassinate him. ... by the CIA, to get even with the Bay of Pigs disaster. More about:

Question: Who was Marilyn Monroe's last husband
Answer: Arthur Miller